Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Alms Round, Chiang Mai

In Thailand, Buddhist monks are not allowed to cook and store food. They live on sustenance offered by the laities. Every morning, from 6.00 am to 7.30 am, monks step out of their monasteries in their daily pindapat, or alms round. They walk through cities or villages and are offered food by the devotees.

When I was in Chiang Mai, I woke up early in the morning to take the pictures shown below. It was cool in Chiang Mai. The temperature was below 20C. I was in my sweater, but the monks walked bare-footed. While a few of them had their bald heads covered, most didn’t.

Here we see a woman offers food to the monk. The monk, in turn, blesses her…